How do you manage your feelings around not being your partner's usual type?

[KeepTheDoorClosed]

I'm probably far too old to be worrying about this but I am not my partner's type physically. At all. The opposite in fact and not in a good way.

I'm also completely different to them in terms of personality, character, level of education, career choice. Everything.

I'm really struggling with it, which is also very different to how they were. They were also very confident and self assured and I'm clearly not.

I just feel like all the time he's with me, he's not going to meet someone more his type. I see women who are his type all the time. He must do too.

I know I'm not my partners type however we have been together 15+ years.
He likes the Mediterranean look of dark hair, olive skin and brown eyes. I am the complete opposite.
Does this stop me dyeing my hair blonder- NO.
If he wants a Mediterranean beauty he can jog on.

I think the fact that you aren’t his usual type is a huge positive.

it means he fancies ‘you’ - the person. That is the highest compliment.

i find guys whose partners have all looked the same are very shallow and I think less of them. It basically means they see women as purely physical objects- there’s no way all these identical looking women will have identical personalities.

It is. I am exhausted. Sometimes I go to bed early because I can't sit with with my thoughts anymore.

I don't have the time for counselling at the moment. I've had a lot previously but it hasn't really helped.

Thank you. There have been some responses on here that have given me food for thought.

Absolutely. My DH is as far from my 'type' as it is possible to be, which is excellent because my 'type' was 'starving artists with commitment problems who couldn't spell fidelity.' DH and I are deliriously happy, married 26 years. That blind date was the best thing I ever did.

If I think about women I'm most often attracted to, then my wife is my 'type', but that's not why we're married and I'm so flipping happy. That's all about her as a person. In the past I went out with someone very different to my type, however I was still attracted to her and if she'd been the person my wife is, then it would have been very different and I could have seen us together forever. But she wasn't, and I was not the person she wanted.
My point is that your partner wasn't looking for an perfect identikit of his 'type' he was looking for a whole person he wanted to be with and you're that.

I know I don’t fit with my DP’s previous type - 3 all very similar, petite with short straight dark hair, round faces. I don’t have any of those features. I think it’s weird too

My DH likes thin faced, beautiful, dark-haired, cruel looking women.
I am (or at least was) pretty in a jolly, kind, plumptious way.
His ex was his ‘type’. But she’s his ex for a reason.

I think I would mind less if I just felt different. It's the fact I feel lesser that makes it difficult.

If they are all exs then his usual type doesn’t have a great track record! I think it’s a positive.

*For example, he's said he finds a particular accent sexy. It's an accent from a country I love and have visited often. I now feel like I can't go there because I'll be inferior to every woman there because i dont have that accent. I can't watch anything with women who have that accent in it.

I know it's stupid but I can't help how I feel.*

Have you considered therapy to help unpack why you feel this way and how to deal with it? Your feelings on this are quite extreme and I feel unless you get a handle on it, it would impact any relationship you're in. Not just the one with your current partner. It's just not a normal reaction to be so triggered by someone saying they like an accent and then feeling inferior and having every experience ruined where that accent is present because of it (and I'm sure many other such similar situations that you are experiencing)

It's also harmful to yourself even if you weren't in a relationship. It would be amazing for you to realize how wonderful you truly are and to be confident in that regardless of anyone else

and I'm sure many other such similar situations that you are experiencing

Yes. It's overwhelming at times.

I can't watch films with him without checking them out beforehand.

I've booked time off work to go to a festival with him and a couple of friends but I haven't bought my ticket yet. We've been before and I'm in constant fight or flight mode because of it. The constant adrenaline rush is unpleasant.

I want to go but I don’t at the same time. It feels too risky.

@TheSnowyOwl exactly

My DP is not my type in anything except he is a great and kind guy. I would never have swiped on him. We only matched as my friend took over my dating profile for the night and sent him the first message when we matched. Everything else was done by me.

it was his chat that I liked. We meet for dinner a few weeks later. Honestly I wasn’t too attracted to him at first sight but we clicked and chatted for hours. Just felt comfortable with him and felt like I knew him for ages. At the end of the night, I really fancied him.

personality wise we are not our normal type. He went for loud people that were funny. He was also used to a traditional role type relationship with someone not career driven. Also relationships full of drama.

I am quiet, career driven want equality etc and not into drama (took him a while to get that). But we love each other and say we didn’t realise our type till late on in life.

"I think that I'd be less bothered by it if I felt attractive in my own right but I don't."

That's the crux of it really. You need to work on your own sense of self-worth - seeking external validation is just self-sabotage.

I think people who have a type are pretty immature emotionally. That said, when men have a type and they end up with someone not that, my theory is it’s because they genuinely have a connection and find that person uniquely attractive, OR can’t find anyone who is their type and just settle... until they do.

Anyway, the big issue is - if you’re feeling this way at all, I tend to think they’re letting you feel a bit on edge on purpose. I wouldn’t be at all concerned with wasting his time not finding someone his type, but rather wasting your own if he doesn’t think you’re his absolutely new type

My DH isn't my type. Every bf before him has been blond, blue-eyed, tall and a bit nerdy. He's none of those things. I love him just the way his is. I see him. Honestly, I don't have eyes for anyone else. You have to accept that you are enough. If you can't that's about you. You need to look inwards not out.

He shouldn't have told you. But meeting them I guess it was hard to avoid that. A man once did this to me and it caused so much insecurity. I think they do it on purpose to always keep us needy.

@KeepTheDoorClosed - your updates suggest that this is much more about you and your fragility than anything your partner is saying or doing. You say you don’t have time to do therapy but it really sounds like you would benefit from making time (I mean - you can probably do it over Zoom for 1 hour a week: is that really not doable?). Perhaps CBT or something?

CBT is great.
Also is there anything you can do to boost your self esteem? Exercising, eating well? Meditation, painting? Stuff for you.

Take care of yourself OP

Yes, this.

Or you risk your h leaving you - not because he prefers another type of woman, but because your behaviour will have driven him away.

You will be much happier too if you could control your thoughts.

your updates suggest that this is much more about you and your fragility than anything your partner is saying or doing

Yes, you're right logically, I know he wouldn't be with me if he didn't find me attractive but my brain won't let me accept it because all i can see are the things he finds attractive that I'm not. I hadn't considered online therapy that's a good shout. Thanks.

Also is there anything you can do to boost your self esteem? Exercising, eating well? Meditation, painting? Stuff for you.

I do do things for myself but it doesn't help. I lost a stone last year. I was about 4lb from my target weight but I put it back on because I just felt worse about myself. I looked better but I felt worse about myself and I don't really know why. I just felt very uncomfortable with the idea that being a bit thinner would make me more acceptable I think and I didn't like the positive comments.

I do need to lose it again though for myself.

I just feel a lot of shame and guilt around how I look and that he is missing out on not being with the sort of woman he finds attractive. Unlike pps, I don't see why he wouldn’t risk losing me and everything we have if someone who was more his type came along.

But they are all ex partners so the type you think he should be with doesn't actually work for him. Maybe he has realised that he needs a different 'type' and it's you.
Best not to over think why someone is attracted to someone. There can be numerous reasons and some not obvious at all. You will destroy the relationship if you think like this. Just accept that he wants to be with you and enjoy it.

You might have already said but how long have you been together?

This isn't coming from him. He is actually quite vocal about how attractive he finds me but I'm constantly aware of women around us and women we know who are more his type.

Every now and again I have a brief flash of being OK with it where I understand for just a fleeting moment that what makes women attractive to men (for example) is all the ways in which we are physically different from them and that, actually, for most of them they don't care about a few extra pounds or a bit of wobble or what size breasts are or how slim legs are or how intelligent someone is or isn't etc. But it's so fleeting. There's like a shadow of it that lasts for a short while but then I talk myself out of it again.

I know he thinks I'm really funny and that sometimes I come out with something which makes him really laugh and he says, "Just when I thought I couldn't love you anymore," but I feel that those things are just a compensation for all the things I am not.